What do appointed school boards, charter schools, high stakes testing and the (maybe) soon to be appointed Alabama State Superintendent, Michael Sentance, have in common?

They are all bad for our high poverty kids….and they are all exactly what the BCA (Business Council of Alabama), Sen. Marsh and Rep. Collins would like to have in Alabama.

I’m an edugeek. I admit it. My idea of a good time is reading education legislation, or researching charter schools, or compiling data on test scores and graduation rates.

I’m not the only one. I know teachers and advocates from all across this country that spend much of their free time just like I do, 57,754 of them to be exact. At any given time if I have a question about, oh I don’t know, let’s say Massachusetts education reform for example, all I have to do is log on to the BAT (BadAss Teacher) FB page and post my question. I then get answers from folks that have first-hand experience about what’s REALLY happening in their state.So with all of the talk in Alabama about the Massachusetts Miracle that Michael Sentance helped kick off in 1993, I figured, who better to ask than actual TEACHERS from the state of Massachusetts?

Here is what I’ve learned:Read this report, written by the Citizens for Public Schools, about the 20th anniversary of the ’93 reform. You will see it predominately affected three areas: standardized testing, charter schools, and funding. It failed in two out of the three areas. http://www.citizensforpublicschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CPS-20th-Anniversary-of-ERA-Report-Executive-Summary-Online-6-10-13.pdf

In part the report states: “Massachusetts ranks 31st of 49 states for the gap between Black and White student graduation rates (with 1st meaning that the gap is the smallest) and 39th of 47 states for the size of the gap between Hispanic and White student graduation rates. For Badass Teachers Association: